Ollie Woodson Died

Woodson Died At The Age Of 58:Sunday night’s death of Ali-Ollie Woodson, who sang lead for the Temptations in the 1980s and 1990s, sadly extends one of popular music’s most star-crossed stories.

Four of the five original Tempations also died young a tragic turn for a group that made some of the most enduring music of the last half century.

Woodson, who was 58, died of cancer, from which he had been suffering for many years.

He was not an original Temptation, joining the group in 1984 as a replacement for Dennis Edwards.

He sang lead that year on “Treat Her Like a Lady,” which became the group’s last major radio hit.

While he made only that modest mark on record, Woodson became known to thousands of fans from Temptations’ live appearances over the next decade.

He sang the rough, gospel-influenced vocals originated by David Ruffin and later Edwards in the group’s 1960s hits like “My Girl,” “I Wish It Would Rain” and “I Can’t Get Next To You.”

Woodson left the group in 1987, returned in 1988 and left for good in 1996 to battle throat cancer.

“He had this swagger about himself,” said Motown Alumni Association President Billy Davis. “He was cool. He had a coolness about himself that was really very inviting.”

Despite his fame, Davis said, Woodson was “always a gentleman and always polite and kind to everybody. If we ever asked him to do anything, he never said, ‘Well, it’s going to cost you.’ He’d always say, ‘Yeah, let’s go.’ ”

Among the original Temptations, only founder Otis Williams survives.

Paul Williams committed suicide in 1973 at the age of 34. Ruffin died in 1991 of a drug overdose at the age of 50.

Eddie Kendricks, who sang lead on songs like “Just My Imagination,” died in 1992 of lung cancer at the age of 52, and bass Melvin Franklin was the same age when he died in 1995 of heart failure.